Burned by the electric company

A longtime Pocono Township resident was mad after seeing a recent electric bill.

HOWARD FRANK

A longtime Pocono Township resident was mad after seeing a recent electric bill.

His electric provider smacked him with a rate increase of more than 50 percent in one month.

Inspired by an earlier Pocono Record story of another man's triumph over inflated electric bills, he set out to make things right.

After a call, a few calculations and filling out a form online, he got a call from his electric provider, which had a Brooklyn, N.Y., mailing address.

It promised to send a check for $27 against his claim for $34.88. He accepted, changed providers and got the satisfaction of knowing he wasn't ripped off.

Many Pocono Record readers who elected an initially lower "variable rate" electricity program have complained about the same type of rate robbery, where the rate they are charged is significantly higher in subsequent months.

So we've put together a way to see if you may have been gouged and, if so, how to get your money back.

How do you know if you've been gouged? You compare the kilowatt per hour "rate," or cost of each unit of electricity, for two consecutive months.

If the rate in the second month is more than 20 percent higher than the previous month, you may have been gouged.

To find out how much you may have been overcharged, you have to find the difference between what you were billed for the second month and what you would have been billed if the power supplier used the previous month's rate.

STEP 1:

You compare rates to see if you may have been gouged, and then you figure out by how much.

Get your bills for the month you think you've been overcharged and the month just before it. If you don't have a paper copy, you can log on to your utility's website to get it.

Then you must identify three numbers on those bills and use the math formula accompanying this story online.

Find how much electricity, measured in KwH, you used in the second month.

If PPL is your utility biller, that number will be in a box on the upper right-hand side of the second page of your bill. It will probably be in the hundreds; for some, in the thousands.

For Met-Ed users, it is on the first page of the bill, about halfway down on the right side.

Then look at each bill separately and locate the KwH rate you were charged for the first and second months.

That rate is expressed in pennies out to several decimal places. It's on the same line as the KwH used, and is preceded by an "@" character. For instance, "Commodity charge 604 KwH @.0898."

Armed with those three numbers, go to our gouging calculator. Follow the formula to see if you have been gouged. If you have, there's a formula to determine how much you were overcharged. It's a place to start.

Now the fun begins.

Call your electric power provider. Tell them you think their rate jump was exorbitant, cite the percentage from the calculator and tell them the refund you want.

If you have to leave a message, give them a day to get back to you.

Then, if the electric provider refuses to issue a satisfactory refund, or doesn't even return your call, file an informal complaint online with the state Public Utility Commission.

Go to its informal complaint webpage, bit.ly/1dMOlMW.

To fill out the complaint form, you will need your account number, which is also on your bill.

Item No. 9 on the PUC's informal complaint website asks you for your comments. This is where you have to make your case for a refund.

Here's a sample of what you can write in the comments section:

"During the month of (first month, year), (the name of your electricity supplier) charged me at a rate of (first month's rate). For (following month, year), I was charged (following month's rate). The rate (your electricity supplier) billed me increased by (percentage from worksheet or calculator) between (first month, year) and (following month, year). That rate increase resulted in an overcharge of (refund due) for the month of (following month, year), based on (first month, year)'s rate."

That's all you need. Then click the "submit form" button at the bottom of the page.

The PUC will assign an investigator, who will contact the company to notify if an investigation into a complaint has commenced.